Hey all!

I've been wanting to tackle this project for years now, and given the shakey food market, what better time than now?

Background - I have a BS degree in Horticulture and greenhouse management. It's also my full time job now.

I purchased a $400 greenhouse kit and got it set up. Building it was pretty easy. I used a 2x6 as a footer for the house and anchored it on concrete bricks. Floor is gravel for now, with buried mesh wire and weed fabric. I got auto ventilation set up, and auto heating using an Inkbird analog controller.

My HOBO environment tracker is set up, I'll have some data on condition stability soon.

I'm planning on adding an automatic fogger system for cooling and humidity purposes (I live in an extremely dry climate).

Also on the docket is duckbill earth anchors on the 4 corners, a 2x4 internal "skeleton" for rigidity, and a layer of 6mil poly stretched over the roof for extra insulation and hail protection.

Gonna get benches assembled and installed this weekend.

Next to the greenhouse is a fenced in raised garden bed area. Fenced in because damn deer and elk. There's mesh wire under the beds for critter control as well as weed barrier. I'm going to put another longer raised bed in this weekend, weather permitting. This area is also gonna have 4-5 large deep containers for potato production.

Plants are gonna be: potatoes, carrots, snap beans, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, yellow squash, acorn squash, and several herbs.

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The wiring here will get cleaned up. I just threw it together for testing purposes

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I'll answer any questions yall have. I'll keep updating with progress as well

Long term plans include converting to 100% solar, adding supplemental lighting, auto drip irrigation, auto vent open/close controls, and improved paneling. Money is the limiting factor

It's 30 degrees, cloudy, and snowing here today (high elev. Colorado). The house is holding 68-70 degrees no problem. The test bean plants look good so far. If they can make it through this, the house should be g2g for the season

Very cool, thanks for sharing,, no questions but will follow along.

Thank you for sharing. This is something we have been thinking about. We are greenhouse noobs and wanting to learn more about them. There are some hoop houses near by that are no longer being used that we are thinking about buying.

We built ours in March of 2021 on an old Costco "carport" frame using wiggle wire/channel.

The pavers and sand to cover the inside of it were about the most expensive bits.

We added a fan and louvered shutters later; those would have been worth adding off the bat.

Passive cooling rarely works well enough, and inside temps can soar to over 95 fast on a sunny day. Active cooling (fans, foggers) are a necessity imo.

Aren’t y’all supposed to get 12” of snow tonight?  That’s crazy.
Looks great by the way.

Something like that, yeah. But the honest answer is "we don't know, could be 2", could be 2' "

Thanks!

Update for today:

I got the cables tacked and routed to an acceptable degree. Got the pavers set and sand-grouted in. Got A bench set up. It's a little rough but serves the purpose.

I installed the earth anchors, but didn't have the willpower to run to the hardware store for cables and turnbuckles

Got the front door sealed up with marine insulation tape. That was the biggest cold leak last night, so that should help a bit.

I got my potatoes planted, onion rows planted, and carrots planted.

The house is maintaining 68-70 degrees without any trouble, even though the outside temp didn't break 40 degrees up here today.

HOBO says the house bounced between 64 and 70 overnight, which is excellent considering it was a whopping 17 degrees outside.

Monday, I'll start transferring seedlings from my work's greenhouse to my greenhouse. Tomatoes, beans, cucumbers, and peppers incoming! .

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i'm jealous. i hope someday to do something similar.

Sure!

I bought the OGrow 6x8 kit for the greenhouse. I think after shipping and tax, it ran close to $500 or so. You can simply google it and they come up available here and there. I like the kit - it's relatively simple to put together, goes up in about 5-6 hours or so, and is actually quite solid on its own.

For the foundation, I chose 2x6 footers set up on their side to bump the house up 6", otherwise it would have been uncomfortably short. Because of the wind in my area, I chose to excavate and set the house down 6" rather than up. The corners of the 2x6 frame are set on solid concrete blocks and anchored with concrete screws. I leveled the whole footpad before setting the frame up. I also installed 1/4" wire mesh under the whole house as well as weed block. This keeps the stupid chipmunks and ground squirrels out of the house. Then about 10 bags of gravel. All in all, I probably have about $200 into the base.

I also have the

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" target="_blank">earth anchor duckbills, which will eventually anchor the corners of the house down and add strength to the house. Haven't finished that yet, hopefully this weekend.

As far as interior elements, I put down simple concrete pavers to walk on. I dunno, 30 bucks or so. For environmental controls, I chose an

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" target="_blank">Inkbird heating/cooling controller. It's analog for sure, and cant differentiate between day night cycles, but this is a simple operation so no need to get more complex than that. $40 or so for that. Cant not have it though - you HAVE to control interior temps on greenhouses.

Fan is

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" target="_blank">this guy here. Simple, effective, and moves enough air for the size of the house. Easy to wire in, and easy to mount. Very light as well.

Heater is

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" target="_blank">this heater. I run it at 1300 watt, since the controller can technically only handle 1200 watt. Close enough . It is plenty to keep the house comfortable. In extreme cold, I can plug it in separately and just let er rip at 1500 watt. 5000 btu will maintain, even in pretty damn cold weather.

I cobbled the bench together from left over pallets, so that was essentially free minus my time.

So all in all for this house where it's at right now, I probably have close to 800-900 bucks into this setup. I'm going to add several more elements to the house, such as a fogging system and supplemental LED lighting. I've spent enough for now though, so I'll ride this season out and see how it goes.

I think the editor went crazy

Oof no kidding. Idk what I did wrong. I'll look into it when I get home